because we needed another project

Actually it's because we need a place to live, and suitable rentals are rare and expensive, and house prices have fallen enough that this becomes reasonable:

The offer goes in today, then we'll have a few weeks to back out, giving us time to get inside it again (there are tenants right now). I'll write up details when I take interior pictures, but it's 1,280 square feet, 2 bedrooms, 1 bath, nice little kitchen with granite counters and the kind of recessed sink that Anna loves because you can just wipe the counters cleanly into the sink. (I also like it, but she is a much bigger fan.) Fireplace, big living room, dining room, 2-car garage, cute little backyard with a lemon tree. The yard is dried-out, cracked clay, which means doing raised beds for gardening, but I think those look cooler anyway. And it's still walking distance to downtown and the train.

More details as it happens. It's a short sale, so there's still all sorts of things that can go wrong, and then the house needs to be tented for termites before we can move in, so there's a whole process left. Still, pretty exciting.

(We had breakfast with Anna's grandparents this morning, and Lois said, "It's good to own property." I was trying to be both honest and gracious, but the fact is that it really depends. We'd be paying 60% of what it sold for in June 2006; whoever that was, owning property didn't work out too well for them.)